Sexuality
This week in conversations, we talked about sexuality. While I'm really thankful
that homosexuality/bisexuality is becoming more accepted as something genetic, it's still
sad that many people treat it as an evil curse that should be fixed. Like another student said
during class, it's completely dehumanizing when communities treat being gay as
something wrong, that you're broken and need to be fixed. I have many homosexual
friends who grew up in religious communities and have pondered suicide and other
terrible things. Discriminating against someone's sexuality is like being racist today. In
20 years, I bet people will look back upon those conservatives who shunned sexuality the
same way that we would look upon anyone who's racist today- absolutely ridiculous.
We're in a society where I thought that people would treat everyone equally no matter
what sexuality or race you are. But obviously there's still some discrimination that exists,
whether obvious or unconsciously. For me, I couldn't care less whether someone is gay
or straight. It doesn't affect how I would treat them, and I hope that it's the same for
others. However, having gay rights being such an issue in the government and in other
parts of society says that we're incredibly behind. These types of things are what makes
society fall backwards.
For example, in Utah, gays cannot even come out without being discriminated
against and looked down upon a lot. And thus, Utah is one of the most backwards states
in the world. It's also the most conservative, which is ridiculous because it's completely
religion-based and not based on any type of reasoning or logic. The fact that over 90% of
homosexual students at BYU considered committing suicide raises red flags that this is
something that needs to be fixed, but NOT on their side- it's the beliefs of the religious
community that need to be changed in order to give these students their lives back. It's
devastating that the school believes that "it gets better" as if homosexuality is a terrible
crime. The church has counselors for such "conditions" who try and help them change
their sexuality. My friend went to a counselor who gave him many forms of therapy that
are inhumane - all for the sake of the religion, which defines marriage as between a man
and a woman, and that defines the most important goal in life as reproduction - starting a
big family and living a picture-perfect life. The good thing is that some people are
generally becoming more accepting, as the media has portrayed any sexuality as being
alright.
Overall, I don't understand why gay rights even exist, as gays should be treated
equally in the first place. It's just as absurd as, say, having Asian rights or white rights. It
just makes no sense why such a line has to be drawn in the first place. If I ever have kids,
I'd hope that they grow up in a society where they will not be judged for who they love,
regardless of race, gender, and class.
1
MIT OpenCourseWare
http://ocw.mit.edu
17.S914 Conversations You Can't Have on Campus: Race, Ethnicity, Gender and Identity
Spring 2012
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